1.86vs2.13

[Onimusha370]

Hello everyone, this my first thread in the macrumours forums, although i've been hanging around the site for over a year now.

i'm looking to buy the 13 inch, 256gb SSD macbook air in about a months time, and i've already decided on 4GB of ram. i was wondering if the jump from 1.86ghz to 2.13 ghz might be worth it aswell?

my main uses are safari browsing, email, skype, imovie, iweb, garageband, light logic work, and a few games (cod 4) and torrent programs.

would the 0.27ghz jump be noticeable in any of these? and would it make much of a difference when exporting projects from imovie?

thanks for the help.

 

[Boston007]

Hello everyone, this my first thread in the macrumours forums, although i've been hanging around the site for over a year now.

i'm looking to buy the 13 inch, 256gb SSD macbook air in about a months time, and i've already decided on 4GB of ram. i was wondering if the jump from 1.86ghz to 2.13 ghz might be worth it aswell?

my main uses are safari browsing, email, skype, imovie, iweb, garageband, light logic work, and a few games (cod 4) and torrent programs.

would the 0.27ghz jump be noticeable in any of these? and would it make much of a difference when exporting projects from imovie?

thanks for the help.

Personally, I think the increase is NOT worth the extra $.

The extra ram IS worth it though, so good for you on upgraded to 4GB ram.

Are you going to be exporting your movies to your MBA or an external HDD?

Actually I just realized, you're definitely upgrading to a 256 SSD? In that I would say just get the MBA ultimate and be done with it.

 

[Onimusha370]

Personally, I think the increase is NOT worth the extra $.

The extra ram IS worth it though, so good for you on upgraded to 4GB ram.

Are you going to be exporting your movies to your MBA or an external HDD?

Actually I just realized, you're definitely upgrading to a 256 SSD? In that I would say just get the MBA ultimate and be done with it.

thanks for the quick response. i'm definitely getting the 256gb SSD (need the space for a large itunes library and a load of video footage), and i'll be exporting the projects to the SSD in the macbook air, is there any difference in heat produced and battery consumption in the two? or is the difference minute?

 

[Boston007]

thanks for the quick response. i'm definitely getting the 256gb SSD (need the space for a large itunes library and a load of video footage), and i'll be exporting the projects to the SSD in the macbook air, is there any difference in heat produced and battery consumption in the two? or is the difference minute?

Battery use has to decrease more with the extra speed of the processor I would guess.

That's a small hard drive for itunes AND movies. Any way you can offload your itunes library to an external portable hdd?

That way you can keep your SSD strictly for the exporting of movies. Also, once you export and finish your movies you may want to offload the movie PROJECTS to an external source keeping your SSD slim so to speak.

 

[KPOM]

I have the 2.13GHz but don't really think it is necessary. The 4GB option is much more useful, IMO. The 1.86GHz 4GB version should be more than adequate for your intended uses.

 

[Onimusha370]

Battery use has to decrease more with the extra speed of the processor I would guess.

That's a small hard drive for itunes AND movies. Any way you can offload your itunes library to an external portable hdd?

That way you can keep your SSD strictly for the exporting of movies. Also, once you export and finish your movies you may want to offload the movie PROJECTS to an external source keeping your SSD slim so to speak.

i've worked out that all my files come to about 160GB, so the 256 model can definitely hold everything i need. in terms of keeping the SSD slim, will i see much of a slowdown in performance if i'm using up most of the drives capacity? i'm new to SSD's...

if there is a considerable slowdown, then i'll look into an external (portable) hard drive; but i'd love to carry around just the macbook, no wires attached.

thanks

 

[Boston007]

I have the 2.13GHz but don't really think it is necessary. The 4GB option is much more useful, IMO. The 1.86GHz 4GB version should be more than adequate for your intended uses.

I agree but he's also upgrading to 256SSD so it may be financially a better option to get the MBA ultimate. Let me look at the prices...

1.86 4g 128SSD - 1399
1.86 4g 256SSD - 1699
2.13 4g 256SSD - 1799

If he's going to get that middle one, just spend the extra $100 for the MBA ultimate at that point.

If he was sticking with the 128SSD then yes I would say do NOT get the Ultimate.

 

[Onimusha370]

I agree but he's also upgrading to 256SSD so it may be financially a better option to get the MBA ultimate. Let me look at the prices...

1.86 4g 128SSD - 1399
1.86 4g 256SSD - 1699
2.13 4g 256SSD - 1799

If he's going to get that middle one, just spend the extra $100 for the MBA ultimate at that point.

If he was sticking with the 128SSD then yes I would say do NOT get the Ultimate.

thanks, i think i'm swaying towards the Ultimate! if i'm spending 1700, i might aswell go the extra 100 and make it that bit more 'futureproof'.

 

[Boston007]

thanks, i think i'm swaying towards the Ultimate! if i'm spending 1700, i might aswell go the extra 100 and make it that bit more 'futureproof'.

Yes this was my thinking as well. I would recommend you go that route.

I have the 1.86 4g ram and 128SSD. It's real fast you'll love it

 

[MultiBat]

If you are a numbers kind of person you could take a peek at these tests of the ultimate version (4 GB and 2,13 GHz).
http://www.macworld.com/article/155224/2010/10/macbookairbto_benchmarks.html

In most test you can look att the difference between the ultimate version and the 1.86 GHz version (although with 2GB).

In short the ultimate version was about 10% faster than the stock configuration.

I have been thinking about the exact same thing for a while now and can't decide which processor to get.
On top of that I talked to an Apple guy in a store today and he said he had no issues running the 2 GB version. He recommended med to get 4 GB if I was gonna run Windows on it, but other than that he thought I did not need to upgrade.
I am not going to run windows on it (thats one of the reasons I am switching, NOT to run windows...), so now I am even more confused...

 

[KPOM]

The 2GB vs 4GB question has been debated countless times. The bottom line is that 2GB is fine for most OS X tasks now. 4GB is recommended if you use Windows.

4GB also provides some benefits, likely more speed benefits than the processor bump, because it reduces page outs (RAM is still faster than the SSD), and it also provides some protection in case future applications and versions of OS X make better use of RAM. The main benefit of 64-bit is better RAM management, the argument goes, so why not give it more RAM?

I went with 4GB because I use Windows, and also because for $100 it seemed like a worthwhile upgrade. I went with the 2.13GHz chip mostly for psychological reasons (I had a Rev B with the 1.86GHz processor) and since MacMall had the "Ultimate" for $1700. FWIW, they had the 13"/4GB/256GB model for $1600, too.

 

[Boston007]

The 2GB vs 4GB question has been debated countless times. The bottom line is that 2GB is fine for most OS X tasks now. 4GB is recommended if you use Windows.

4GB also provides some benefits, likely more speed benefits than the processor bump, because it reduces page outs (RAM is still faster than the SSD), and it also provides some protection in case future applications and versions of OS X make better use of RAM. The main benefit of 64-bit is better RAM management, the argument goes, so why not give it more RAM?
I went with 4GB because I use Windows, and also because for $100 it seemed like a worthwhile upgrade. I went with the 2.13GHz chip mostly for psychological reasons (I had a Rev B with the 1.86GHz processor) and since MacMall had the "Ultimate" for $1700. FWIW, they had the 13"/4GB/256GB model for $1600, too.

You will NOT see a 64bit benefit on a machine with less than 16G at least.

 

[Scottsdale]

It is only $99, and you cannot upgrade later. If you are already going 256GB SSD, you might as well do that as it's an option only available to those going with 256GB SSD. The RAM is a no brainer though.

 

[KPOM]

You will NOT see a 64bit benefit on a machine with less than 16G at least.

I haven't heard this before. There likely isn't much benefit to 64-bit at 4GB, but it seems to me that anything above 4GB there is a definite benefit since 32-bit applications can't even access more than 4GB.

My point, though, was that there definitely is no benefit to 64-bit with 2GB. There might be some marginal benefit (accessing an extra 256MB of RAM) on a 4GB system. The MacBook Air ships with a 64-bit OS (granted one running on a 32-bit kernel). It needs a bit more RAM to execute 64-bit code, so why not give it as much as the system can take?

 

[AMDGAMER]

If youre doing it for the larger HD, sure. For the speed increase no way would I do it. I've owned enough computer to know better than to spend a few hundred for a few hundred mhz...no way. DUAL CORE 1.8GHZ is plenty.

 

[topmounter]

is there any noticeable difference in heat between these two procs? How hot does the MBA get running at full-tilt exactly?

I'm trying to avoid the situation I'm currently in with my pre-unibody MBP that gets so searingly hot that I can't use it unless it is sitting on a desk (and even then I worry about it damaging the finish on the desk).

 

[Ronnoco]

I purchased the 11" upgrade to the 1.6 processor because with the this smaller Air, all reports I've read were the issue with the 11" was that the 1.4GHz chip was the weak link...I figured any boost I could get would be helpful...I can say that my 1.6GHz is a touch more snappy with some processor intensive applications than my buddies 1.4GHz...again, it's not much but even a 10% to 15% bump will help this Baby Mac...